Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Lord of the World

I want to get this book.

Excerpt:

"Briefly," he said, "there are three forces--Catholicism,Humanitarianism, and the Eastern religions. About the third I cannotprophesy, though I think the Sufis will be victorious. Anything mayhappen; Esotericism is making enormous strides--and that meansPantheism; and the blending of the Chinese and Japanese dynasties throwsout all our calculations. But in Europe and America, there is no doubtthat the struggle lies between the other two. We can neglect everythingelse. And, I think, if you wish me to say what I think, that, humanlyspeaking, Catholicism will decrease rapidly now. It is perfectly truethat Protestantism is dead. Men do recognise at last that a supernaturalReligion involves an absolute authority, and that Private Judgment inmatters of faith is nothing else than the beginning of disintegration.And it is also true that since the Catholic Church is the onlyinstitution that even claims supernatural authority, with all itsmerciless logic, she has again the allegiance of practically allChristians who have any supernatural belief left. There are a fewfaddists left, especially in America and here; but they are negligible.That is all very well; but, on the other hand, you must remember thatHumanitarianism, contrary to all persons' expectations, is becoming anactual religion itself, though anti-supernatural. It is Pantheism; it isdeveloping a ritual under Freemasonry; it has a creed, 'God is Man,' andthe rest. It has therefore a real food of a sort to offer to religiouscravings; it idealises, and yet it makes no demand upon the spiritualfaculties. Then, they have the use of all the churches except ours, andall the Cathedrals; and they are beginning at last to encouragesentiment. Then, they may display their symbols and we may not: I thinkthat they will be established legally in another ten years at thelatest.

[...]
"Now, we Catholics, remember, are losing; we have lost steadily for morethan fifty years. I suppose that we have, nominally, about one-fortiethof America now--and that is the result of the Catholic movement of theearly twenties. In France and Spain we are nowhere; in Germany we areless. We hold our position in the East, certainly; but even there wehave not more than one in two hundred--so the statistics say--and we arescattered. In Italy? Well, we have Rome again to ourselves, but nothingelse; here, we have Ireland altogether and perhaps one in sixty ofEngland, Wales and Scotland; but we had one in forty seventy years ago.Then there is the enormous progress of psychology--all clean against usfor at least a century. First, you see, there was Materialism, pure andsimple that failed more or less--it was too crude--until psychology cameto the rescue. Now psychology claims all the rest of the ground; and thesupernatural sense seems accounted for. That's the claim. No, father, weare losing; and we shall go on losing, and I think we must even be readyfor a catastrophe at any moment." - Robert Hugh Benson

Comment.

Some of my friends online tell me that all of the time: "Catholics are losing." Catholic teaching is not compatible with ________ - fill in the blank.

From the moment of my conversion there were things I understood, things that are happening now. How much I regret, repent, my wavering and doubt, my infidelities and compromises since then.

"I wish to make reparation for my sins by casting them into the furnace of His
merciful love."

It's a very good book. Other works by Robert Hugh Benson were important influences in my becoming a Catholic.

I'm very heartened that the Pope mentioned it. At the same time, it's hard for me to reconcile with other things he's said about what he believes. But there are a lot of things I don't understand. Sometimes it feels like I understand very little indeed.

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